Coronavirus **personal experiences** thread

I’m just going to quote this horrifying logic for later reference.

That’s some dicey rationalization there. Maybe the booze caused the cancer. I think it has some mood enhancing benefits that might help and your blood pressure may go down when you feel well. Ah, what the hell, I vote for drinking.

As of December 2018 Keith Richards had more or less completely given up alcohol for about a year already at that time

On a similar note, I knew a guy that worked until 85, retired, then shortly died. Some say he should of kept working and some say he should of retired earlier. Your call.

Quote away brother!

I understand the scandal about second-hand smoke allegedly being harmless - my mother died a few months ago from a stroke and other health issues stemming most likely from all the second-hand smoke she inhaled as a child. But as I said, above, trusting an “authority” merely because they are an alleged authority isn’t a good way to find the most reliable information about any issue, including virus prevention and treatment. You need to at least minimally evaluate the methods and source from which the evidence was obtained - and nobody would argue today that the early studies on second-hand smoke coming from the tobacco industry were quality science by today’s standards.

It doesn’t have to be a time-consuming, complicated process - we know, for example, that information coming from peer-reviewed journals, where the methods and data are discussed, is more reliable than a video from a guy who isn’t telling you much about where his data came from or how it was obtained. Some medical academic institutions have posted online a lot of quality, peer-reviewed information derived from good science about Covid-19. Johns Hopkins University is one example.

The fact that today’s scientists can’t be 100% sure about their data or conclusions is no reason to give the same credence to information coming from non-scientific sources. A weather forecast isn’t 100% accurate, but do you therefore decide to predict the weather by reading the coffee grounds remaining in your cup, or asking a fortune teller for the forecast? Of course not. For some questions, science is the most reliable way we have to get to the truth, even though it isn’t 100% right all the time about every question. One benefit of the scientific approach is that it has a correction mechanism built into it. That wasn’t the case with the early tobacco industry pseudo-science, and it isn’t the case with a lot of the information we see now on the web that is agenda-driven junk.

Hell, it goes all the way back to when the tobacco industry hired doctors to say smoking was good for you.

The “good old days”.

I believe the feds still subsidize tobacco farmers.

You are correct. The settlement was sent to the states. Tobacco growing states did give some to the farmers.

I recall old-timers mentioning that if someone had congestion, docs would actually recommend smoking menthol cigarettes. :confounded:

Huh? You mean, that doesn’t actually work?? :laughing:

Seems like a useful treatment. If nothing else, the patient could stick a Noctigon K1 in his mouth, turn it on, and create a starry display on the ceiling……

“More doctors smoke Camels than any other cigarette”

Of course that was true at the time for people in every profession.

That ad reminds me of the joke Steve Martin borrowed from his roommate, Gary Muledeer, when he was an intern with the Smothers Brothers television show, to win a full-time job on the writing staff: “Studies show that more Americans watch television than any other appliance,”

My point is/was what makes you guys (and the doctors) think that hasn’t happen already? I would argue that it already has, before testing for the virus started.

Thanks, hank. I would add that, in addition to looking at the excess death rate across the USA, due to the much higher death rate from COVID-19, there are some other symptoms that are more common with COVID-19 than with a seasonal flu, for example swelling of the heart, and loss of ability to taste and smell. There were probably some cases of COVID-19 mistaken for the flu, but not a lot, or they would have figured out quickly that it wasn’t just the seasonal flu going around.

In addition, there has been enough reporting of positive tests in various locations around the world that scientists have a pretty good idea through contact tracing when and where the first people became infected in the USA with COVID-19. There is now some evidence being investigated that there might have been a few cases of infected people in the US a month or two earlier than previously thought, but we know there were not a large number of cases of COVID-19 infection in the USA before they could tell it wasn’t the flu. By the end of the year, when the death count in the USA is projected to be twice what it is now and the infection count also much higher, those early cases that weren’t distinguished from the flu will be an even smaller percentage of the total number of infected and dead than they are now.

I was hoping for more international input. I get the question everything. 1918 is relevant and should be understood — if only! Seems to me if we are going to talk about dealing with it just maybe we should start with what the most successful have to say. Hong Kong, South Korea, Norway, Japan… they clearly have something figured out that we just don’t get in America.

I recently heard on TV that only 45% of Americans wear a face mask when they are around people that they don't live with.

Also, I think the U.S. might be one of only a few countries that have politicized science.

That and the lack of good leadership at the very top is part of the reason why the U.S. is doing so poorly.

The people in countries that are doing very well most likely wear face masks around people that they don't live with, trust science, and have good leadership at the very top.

It's not rocket science.

Hank
Here is the part of that same article that drives all of us crazy.

That sums it up well, along with nationwide social distancing mandates, and high compliance rates. See also the above posts about New Zealand a few screens back.